Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to: an image forming apparatus such as a multifunctional digital image forming apparatus (i.e., a multi-function peripheral abbreviated as MFP) having multiple functions, e.g., copier function, printer function, facsimile function, and scanner function; and a recording medium.
Description of the Related Art
The following description sets forth the inventor's knowledge of related art and problems therein and should not be construed as an admission of knowledge in the prior art.
While users can purchase add-on applications (also to be referred to as “add-on apps” for short) for customizing functions of image forming apparatuses as described above, which are provided by third-party vendors, there have been well-known image forming apparatuses having a configuration allowing users to install such add-on apps.
FIG. 11 illustrates how such a well-known image forming apparatus installs add-on apps. A user purchases add-on apps A, B, and C provided by vendors A, B, and C, respectively, and installs them on a MFP 1000. As referred to FIG. 11, the MFP 1000 has a storage device 1100, and the add-on apps A, B, and C are stored on directories A0000001, A0000002, and A0000003 in the storage device 1100, respectively.
The add-on apps A, B, and C are configured not to access each other for security purposes.
Upon activation, the add-on app A, B, and C generate a display screen to be displayed on a display panel; for example, they generate a settings screen showing various terms such as function names and setting items. In order to promote the MFP 1000 in different countries and regions, it is preferred that the add-on apps A, B, and C be localized to a ship-to country or region of the MFP 1000 and be configured to display information on a display screen in a suitable language for the ship-to country or region.
To localize the add-on apps A, B, and C to a ship-to destination, it can be a solution for the add-on apps A, B, and C to include their own translation data files. This solution, however, brings another problem as described below.
When the add-on apps A, B, and C include their own translation data files, these translation data files are largely the same because of the same function names and setting items of the MFP 1000. As referred to FIG. 12, the add-on apps A, B, and C are stored on the directories A0000001, A0000002, and A0000003 in the storage device 1100 of the MFP 1000, respectively. When the add-on apps A, B, and C include their own translation data files 1200 (each contains English and Japanese strings for each term identified by a term ID in the example of FIG. 12), these translation data files 1200, which are largely the same, are also stored on the directories as resource data files. This can cause the problem of an inefficient use of memory space in the storage device 1100. Normally, every vendor is in responsible for localization of its own add-on app. So, the vendors A, B, and C separately do their localizations and prepare their own translation data files, which is not advantageous from an efficiency perspective.
It can be another solution for the MFP 1000 to store the translation data files on its firmware. This solution, however, brings yet another problem as described below. The MFP 1000 is subject to a technical field service for firmware update in order to have a new translation data file or update the existing translation data files. The MFP 1000 further needs to store a conversion database for mapping necessary terms from the translation data files. The translation data files contain different terms and term IDs for identifying the terms depending on the model they support. When the translation data files contain terms in too many languages for a ship-to destination of one single language, this causes the problem of an inefficient use of the hardware resources of the MFP 1000.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2000-207395 discloses a Japanese analysis device that performs a word determining process using the converter information input to a character converter device and the indexes of a character conversion dictionary and a Japanese analysis dictionary. By consolidating the indexes of these dictionaries, the Japanese analysis device is capable of making more memory space available and thus saving the resources of information apparatuses.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. H01-042770 suggests a language analysis device that performs a description conversion process and a description analysis in an efficient manner without the need for an extra memory for a dictionary.
The techniques disclosed in these publications are not indented to localize the add-on apps A, B, and C to a ship-to destination. So, these publications cannot provide a solution to the problem of when the add-on apps A, B, and C include their own translation data files, and also cannot provide a solution to the problem of when the MFP 1000 stores their translation data files on its firmware.